Sweyn blinked, and then promptly dropped his burden. The Scot landed with an oomph as Sweyn walked away.
“What were you doing?” Ivo had followed him to the far side of the room.
Sweyn turned his face away and shook his head. He had run mad, that was the only explanation. The words spilled out of him.
“She wants me to make her a woman.” He tried to laugh, but the sound cracked in the middle. “Me! What do I know of faithfulness and…and love, Ivo? I have never looked for such things before, not even within myself.”
Ivo appeared to be as much at a loss as Sweyn, although he didn’t seem to need to ask of whom Sweyn was speaking. “Be careful,” he said at last. “Be very sure before you make any decisions, my friend.”
Sweyn groaned and sank his head into his hands. Careful? It was far too late for careful. He was already up to his neck and gasping for air. Odin help him, he loved her, and unless he could think of a very good reason why, Sweyn knew that sooner or later he was going to do just as Mary asked.
The final song was finished. Despite a fight that had broken out in one part of the hall, Briar and Mary had managed to sing it perfectly, together. Pleased, they soaked up the applause, which was long and loud. And then the acrobats came running, darting amongst the crowd, turning somersaults and climbing onto each other’s shoulders.
Mary laughed and clapped her hands as one of the acrobats pretended to look under a woman’s skirts, causing her to squeal in outrage. A moment later, the humor had drained out of her again, and she looked so sad that Briar reached out to touch her cheek.
“What is it, sweeting?” she asked gently. “You are unhappy. Tell me, Mary, what ails you?”
The girl sighed and shook her head.
“Please, Mary?” Briar whispered. Why would no one let her help! Once she had always been the one her sisters turned to, now they kept their troubles to themselves. How could she help if they would not tell her?
“I am grown, Briar. I can mend my own broken toys.”
Briar gave up. She turned again to the crowd, now enjoying the acrobats’ performance. Miles. The name slipped into her mind like a cool breeze on a hot day, and just as tempting. If she spoke with him, asked him about Ivo, where was the harm? Assuming she could find him in this crush.
“Wait here,” she said, over her shoulder to Mary, and started to make her way in the direction she had last seen Miles de Vessey.
Luckily most of the guests were entranced with the attempt by the acrobats to climb, all five, upon each other’s shoulders. While the motley column swayed back and forth, Briar was able to find her way to the back of the hall without being accosted or complimented on her singing, or asked if she was really the daughter of the traitor, Richard Kenton.
She glanced about her.
Miles was not here, but there was a doorway, curtained by a tapestry, which led into another chamber. Perhaps he was in there? It seemed unlikely, but where else could he have gone so abruptly? Briar lifted aside the tapestry and peeped through the gap. Shadows, nothing but shadows in a small alcove which contained nothing more than a bench and a table. She turned to go.
“I enjoyed your singing, lady.”
Miles.
“Come in, I have been waiting for you.”
One of the shadows moved, took the shape of a man. Miles stepped closer, and Briar could see his eyes, pale in the gloom and fixed on her. He had changed his clothing from earlier, the green tunic he wore now was clean and well made, his breeches of fine stuff, and his boots soft leather. His jaw was freshly shaved, accentuating that attractive leanness she had already noted.
There was a resemblance to Ivo. In the shape of his chin, mayhap, and the way he held himself, in his handsome smile, but Ivo was bigger, broader, and not so good-looking nor so cool-tempered. Miles, with his gray eyes and lean face, was the more attractive, and yet there was something about him that repelled Briar. She did not know quite what it was, and even as she thought it, she dismissed it as unfair. He was different, that was all. She should not, she thought guiltily, judge every man by one.
Her guilt made her step into the alcove with him.
“Is my brother here tonight?” His voice was softer, more intimate, as if they were preparing to exchange secrets. Which was what Briar had been hoping to do. Why then did she feel so uneasy in his presence?
“Ivo is not my keeper, sir,” she said calmly enough, pretending his gaze did not make her nervous. “I do not know where he is.”
Miles smiled Ivo’s smile, but it lacked Ivo’s warmth and sense of mischief, it lacked Ivo’s chivalrousness and protectiveness. If she were handing out counters, Ivo had them nearly all. “I can see he is not your keeper. You are a lady with a mind very much of her own.”
She smiled back, pleased he should realize it. Ivo still did not understand that she could take care of herself. Finally she could set a counter in Miles’s pile.
He leaned closer, and confided, “You asked me about Lady Anna. I did not tell you all.”
“What more is there to say, Sir Miles?”
He hesitated, glanced at her, and away again. “I am ashamed to say, lady. Will you tell Ivo? He already thinks badly of me. And yet he is my brother, my only brother, and I love him. Do you know what it is like, Lady Briar, to be at odds with your own brother?”